Integrating Service Management Processes Across the Service Lifecycle Tutorial

3.2 Learning Unit03

Welcome to Learning Unit 3 of ITIL Managing Across the Lifecycle Certification Course by Simplilearn. To establish an efficient service management practice within an organisation, it is essential to enable seamless flow of information and activities across processes. This is possible when we understand the value of each process and the interactions that each process has with other processes. In this module we shall discuss the inputs and outputs of all the lifecycle stages. We shall also discuss the value to business and interfaces of each of the processes within every lifecycle stage. The next slide represents the interdependency and integration of various lifecycle stages and processes in the form of a diagram.?

3.3 Integration Across the Service Lifecycle

The key objective of service management is to realise value for the business through the services delivered. The five stages of the service lifecycle work together as an integrated system to achieve this objective and every stage is interdependent on the other lifecycle stages. The diagram on this slide represents this interdependency and integration of various lifecycle stages and processes. Integrating service management processes depends on the flow of information across processes, lifecycle stages and organisational boundaries. Service strategy is responsible for establishing policies and principles that provide guidance for the whole service lifecycle. The service portfolio is one of the key outputs from this stage. It defines, analyses and charters the services that are required to support business processes and to achieve business objectives. The service design stage is responsible for designing everything needed to create, transition and operate the services as per business requirements. It not only designs the service solution but also the management information systems and tools, architectures, processes, measurement methods and metrics. All these designs are incorporated in the service design package, which is handed over to service transition. Service transition ensures that the requirements of the service strategy, developed in service design, are effectively realised in service operation while controlling the risks of failure and disruption. It is responsible for building, testing and deploying the service solution along with supporting processes, tools and technology and management systems. The service operation stage of the lifecycle carries out the activities and processes required to deliver the agreed services. It is responsible for managing the day-to-day operational activities and ensures that services are delivered as per agreed service levels. During this stage of the lifecycle, the value defined in the service strategy is realised by the customers and users. Once services are operational, every opportunity should be utilised to improve them ensuring that the services are aligned to changing business requirements, in a cost effective manner. Continual service improvement acts in tandem with all the other lifecycle stages. All processes, activities, roles, services and technologies are monitored, measured and subjected to continual improvement. Integration of service management processes becomes even more significant from the fact that most of the processes and functions span across lifecycle stages. The service knowledge management system maintains knowledge, information and data needed by an IT service provider to manage the full lifecycle of IT services. It is an important component of service management that enables integration across the service lifecycle stages. The strength of the service lifecycle rests upon continual feedback throughout each stage of the lifecycle. This feedback ensures that service optimisation is managed from a business perspective and is measured in terms of the value the business derives from services at any point in time during the service lifecycle. We will move on to discuss the impact of service strategy on service design and service transition.

3.4 Impact of Service Strategy on Other Lifecycle Stages

Service strategy provides the direction, policies and standards based on which the other stages are managed and executed and services move through the lifecycle. We shall now discuss the impact of service strategy on other lifecycle stages. Let us start with the impact and influence of service strategy on service design. Service strategy analyses various opportunities and requirements and charters the services. It sets the broad direction for the design of services and objectives that services need to achieve. It also defines the boundaries within which the design of services must be undertaken. The design of a service should be based on the outcomes expected by the customer. These are generally stated in terms of utility and warranty and are initially captured during the service strategy stage. In addition, service strategy will identify the constraints within which the service needs to be developed. These may include funding, resource availability, legislation, technology, values and ethics, comparative costs, etc. These constraints create a set of boundaries within which the design must be developed. Service models provide the basic architecture that is used to develop services during service design. Service design packages are defined and developed based on service models. Service models provide information on the market space that the service is being designed for and the type of assets that are required to deliver and support the service. The patterns of business activity are identified and validated by demand management. Design activities related to the utilisation, performance, capacity and availability of a service are based on these patterns of business activity. Business impact analysis reports and findings from service strategy enable designing services with appropriate levels of availability, service continuity, security and performance. It will also help design teams in prioritising and managing resource allocations. Business relationship management provides valuable information about the customers, their objectives, environment and requirements. It also helps to validate and clarify customer requirements throughout the service design stage. We shall now look at how service strategy impacts and influences service transition. Service strategy assists in moulding the strategy for how services should be transitioned. Working with transition planning and support, service strategy determines various aspects like the appropriate mechanisms for release and deployment, level of customer involvement needed and types and levels of training required. Service strategy is instrumental in defining what needs to change, when and to what extent. Service portfolio management and strategy management enable service transition to ensure that all changes contribute to the achievement of the service provider’s overall strategy, as well as the strategy of individual services. Service transition will test and validate that the services being introduced or changed, are able to achieve the objectives and outcomes that have been defined during service strategy and service design. Let us look at the impact of service strategy on service operation and continual service improvement.

3.5 Impact of Service Strategy on Other Lifecycle Stages

We move on to the next stage and discuss the impact of service strategy on service operation. The strategies of an organisation are realised through service operation. Hence service strategy must be mindful of operational capabilities and constraints and define the strategies accordingly. In case the strategy is to explore new market opportunities, then it should ensure that the operational capabilities are enhanced to align with new opportunities. Operations should clearly understand the outcomes necessary for a given strategy and provide adequate support with effectiveness and efficiency. If not, there will be adverse impact on the complete organisation’s performance. Operational activities should be designed and measured using the strategic objectives and outcomes as a basis. It is essential to define the linkage between strategic outcomes and operational activities and it should be possible to measure how successfully the strategy is being executed and how well it is achieving its objectives by measuring operational activities. Let us now look at how service strategy and continual service improvement influence each other. Continual service improvement uses the defined strategies and desired outcomes as a basis for evaluating whether services are successful. It enables initiation of corrective actions and improvements to correct the situation where required. Continual service improvement is responsible for continual assessment and measurement of services, processes and performance. Through this it assists in determining where a strategy needs to be changed and how it can be made more effective. Thus, it acts as an initiator of strategy. The diagram in the following slide represents the lifecycle of a service and its different stages.

3.6 Service Lifecycle Perspective Designing Service Solutions

When designing service solutions it is important to have a service lifecycle perspective rather than just looking from a project perspective. The diagram on this slide represents a formal and structured approach and its constituent stages required to produce a new service at the right cost, functionality, performance and timeframe. It also represents the lifecycle of a service from the initial or changed business requirement through the design, transition and operation stages of the lifecycle. Let us now analyse this representation in more detail. Firstly, the service design must develop the service solution based on the documented and agreed business requirements. Secondly, the service acceptance criteria should be incorporated into the initial design. It may evolve and be verified till live operation of the service. Thirdly, the service design package should include the service solution covering the transition, operation and improvement of the new or changed service. Fourthly, the design should also indicate the change evaluation points across the project and lifecycle stages. Lastly, it should ensure effective transfer of knowledge at all stages between the operational staff and the project staff. This is to ensure smooth progression through each of the stages of the service development as well as the service lifecycle. Please spare a few minutes to explore this comprehensive service lifecycle representation to gain an understanding of the stages, activities and controls relating to services.

3.7 Service Perspective Designing Service Solutions

Service design is responsible for developing solutions that can be built, tested, deployed and operated efficiently. We will now look at the areas that need to be considered while designing the service solution. The areas to cover and relevant activities to perform are: Analysing the agreed business requirements Reviewing the existing IT services and infrastructure and producing alternative service solutions, with a view to reusing or exploiting existing components and services wherever possible Designing the service solutions for the new requirements, including their constituent components Ensuring that the contents of the service acceptance criteria are incorporated and the required achievements planned into the initial design Evaluating and costing alternative designs, highlighting advantages as well as disadvantages of the alternatives Agreeing the expenditure and budgets Agreeing the required timelines to complete design, develop, build, test and deploy the service Re-evaluating and confirming the business benefits, including the return on investment from the service Agreeing the preferred solution and its planned outcomes and targets Checking that the solution is in balance with all corporate and IT strategies, policies, plans and architectural documents Ensuring that all of the appropriate corporate and IT governance and security controls are included in the solution Completing an ‘organisational readiness assessment’ to ensure that the service can be effectively operated to meet its agreed targets and that the organisation has the appropriate capability to deliver The business capability and maturity The IT capability and maturity The supplier and supporting agreements required to maintain and deliver the service The assembly of a service design package for the subsequent transition, operation and improvement In the next slide we will discuss the inputs and outputs in the service strategy stage.

3.8 Service Strategy Inputs and Outputs by Lifecycle Stages

Service management will be effective and efficient when there is a seamless integration of the service lifecycle phases and processes. This integration is said to happen when the flow of inputs and outputs is systematic and timely. In the next few slides we shall be looking at the inputs and outputs of each lifecycle stage. It may be noted that the inputs to one stage are the outputs from other stages. Similarly the outputs of a stage become the inputs of other stages. We shall be discussing these inputs and outputs at a very high level. It is suggested that you spare more time to explore these slides for identifying and understanding the inputs and outputs in more detail. We shall start with service strategy stage inputs and outputs. The inputs from service design include the service design packages, updated service models, financial estimates and designs for service strategy processes. The key inputs from service transition are transitioned services, response to change proposals, change schedules, financial reports and knowledge and information in the service knowledge management system. The inputs from service operation to service strategy include operating risks, operating cost information and actual performance data. The inputs from continual service improvement stage are - the results from customer satisfaction surveys, key performance indicators, critical success factors, service reports and requests for change. The common outputs from service strategy to all these stages are - the vision and mission statements, service portfolio, policies, strategies, financial information and budgets, and priorities. Since we are discussing the inputs and outputs of different stages, next we will look at service design.

3.9 Service Design Inputs and Outputs by Lifecycle Stages

Let us now discuss the service design stage inputs and outputs. The inputs from service strategy include - the vision and mission statements, service portfolio, policies, strategies, priorities, financial information and budgets and service models. The key inputs from service transition are service catalogue updates, feedback on designs and service design packages, design errors identified and evaluation reports. The inputs from service operation to service design are operational requirements, actual performance data, requests for change and historical incident and problem records. The inputs from continual service improvement stage are the results from customer satisfaction surveys, key performance indicators, critical success factors, feedback and requests for change. The common outputs from service design to all these stages are - the service catalogue, service design packages, designs for respective processes and knowledge and information in the service knowledge management system. Let us discuss the inputs and outputs in the service transition stage.

3.10 Service Transition Inputs and Outputs by Lifecycle Stages

Let us move on to Service transition related inputs and outputs The inputs from service strategy include - the vision and mission statements, service portfolio, policies, strategies, priorities, change proposals, financial information and budgets and service models. The key inputs from service design are service catalogue, service design packages, requests for change; designs for service transition processes and input to change evaluation. The inputs from service operation are - feedback on quality of transition, actual performance data, requests for change and input to change evaluation and CAB meetings. The inputs from continual service improvement stage are - the results from customer satisfaction surveys, key performance indicators; critical success factors, service reports, input to testing requirements, feedback and requests for change. The common outputs from service transition to all these stages are - transitioned services, change schedules, feedback, and knowledge and information in the service knowledge management system. We will discuss the inputs and outputs in the service operation stage in the next slide.

3.11 Service Operation Inputs and Outputs by Lifecycle Stages

We shall now discuss the service operation stage related inputs and outputs. The inputs from service strategy include - the vision and mission statements, service portfolio, policies, strategies, priorities, financial information and budgets and strategic risks. The key inputs from service design are service catalogue, service design packages; designs for service operation processes, service level agreements and security policies. The inputs from service transition are - new or changed services, known errors, standard changes, change schedules and knowledge and information in the service knowledge management system. The inputs from continual service improvement stage are - the results from customer satisfaction surveys, key performance indicators, critical success factors, service reports, feedback and requests for change. The common outputs from service operation to all these stages are - operating risks, operational requirements, actual performance data and requests for change. We will learn about the various inputs and outputs in the continual service improvement stage in the next slide. ?

3.12 CSI Inputs and Outputs by Lifecycle Stages

We shall now finally cover the continual service improvement stage related inputs and outputs. The inputs from service strategy include - the vision and mission statements, service portfolio, policies, strategies, priorities, financial information and budgets, achievement against targets and improvement opportunities. The key inputs from service design are service catalogue, service design packages, designs for seven step improvement process, knowledge and information and improvement opportunities. The inputs from service transition are - test reports, change evaluation reports, knowledge and information in the service knowledge management system and improvement opportunities. The inputs from service operation are - actual performance data, proposed problem resolutions, knowledge and information, achievements against targets and improvement opportunities. The common outputs from continual service improvement stage to all other stages are - the results from customer satisfaction surveys, key performance indicators, critical success factors, service reports, feedback and requests for change. We will discuss the benefits of strategy management in the next slide.

3.13 Value to Business Strategy Management for IT Services

Strategy management for IT services is the process of defining and maintaining an organisation’s perspective, position, plans and patterns with regard to its services and the management of those services. The purpose of a service strategy is to articulate how a service provider will enable an organisation to achieve its business outcomes. Business can derive a number of benefits by adopting this process. Firstly, the strategy of an organisation articulates its objectives, defines how it will meet those objectives and how it will know it has met those objectives. Strategy management for IT services enables a service provider to specify the type of services it will deliver, the customers of those services and the overall business outcomes to be achieved. Secondly, a well-defined and managed strategy ensures that the resources and capabilities of the organisation are aligned to achieving its business outcomes and that investments match the organisation’s intended development and growth. Thirdly, strategy management also ensures that the resources, capabilities and investments are appropriately managed to achieve the strategy. It further enables a service provider to have an appropriate set of services in its service portfolio. Lastly, strategy management for IT services further encourages appropriate levels of investment which results in cost savings, higher investments for key projects or initiatives and making required changes in investment priorities. We will now look into the interfaces of strategy management for IT services in the next slide.

3.14 Strategy Management for IT Services Interfaces

Strategy management for IT services is a very critical process and interfaces with almost all the service management processes. We shall look at the most important ones here. Strategy management for IT services and service portfolio management are highly interdependent. Service portfolio management will have to operate within the guidelines and framework defined by strategy management. It should adhere to the objectives and policies while evaluating new services or considering changes to existing services. Service portfolio management provides useful information regarding current and pipeline services and evolving market spaces. Investments made by financial management for IT services are mostly directed by strategy management for IT services. It also provides guidelines regarding the type and level of returns expected from the investments. On the other hand financial management provides the required tools and information to strategy management for prioritising actions and plans. Strategy management for IT services provides guidelines and policies to be adhered to by service design processes. It also defines the constraints if any, within which designs must be developed or design teams must operate. Service transition is required to build and deploy the services as per strategic priorities. This stage must also ensure that the services developed are in line with strategic requirements and objectives. Knowledge management provides structured information which gives visibility to strategy management for IT services regarding current environment and it dynamics. This enables informed decisions for the future. Service operation must ensure that strategic priorities are given appropriate focus. The operational tools, processes and activities must ensure that they have been aligned to the strategic objectives and desired business outcomes. Continual service improvement measures the performance of other lifecycle stages and processes to check compliance with strategic plans and polices. It will also measure achievement of anticipated results. The findings are shared with strategy management for IT services to correct or adjust the deviations if any. In the next slide we will discuss service portfolio management in detail.

3.15 Value to Business Service Portfolio Management

The purpose of service portfolio management is to ensure that the service provider has the right mix of services to balance the investment in IT with the ability to meet business outcomes. It tracks the investment in services throughout their lifecycle and works with other service management processes to ensure that the appropriate returns are being achieved. The value to business from this process can be appreciated from the following points. First, service portfolio management enables the business to make sound decisions about investments. It evaluates various opportunities based on business cases and return on investment. Based on this evaluation and the strategic objectives of the organisation, services are approved and chartered. Second, customers have a clear understanding of what the service provider will deliver and under what conditions. This will enable them to compare similar services from other service providers and select the one that best suits their requirements. Third, it also enables the customers to take investment decisions and evaluate further business opportunities that can be derived from the services being considered. Service portfolio management can thus become a tool for innovation for the organisation. We will now look into the key interfaces of service portfolio management in the next slide.

3.16 Service Portfolio Management Interfaces

Service portfolio management is a very important service management process. A number of processes are triggered by the activities and outputs from this process. We shall now discuss some of the key interfaces pertaining to service portfolio management. Service catalogue is a part of service portfolio and represents the operational services delivered by the service provider. Service portfolio management determines what services will move from pipeline to catalogue after a proper evaluation and assessment. Service catalogue management ensures that all required activities are performed to include and manage service information in the catalogue. The inclusion of services in service portfolio is based on guidelines and directions from strategy management for IT services. It ensures that only those services that meet the strategic direction and objectives find a place in the portfolio and that investments are made accordingly. Financial management for IT services provides important information and tools which enable service portfolio management to analyse, evaluate and approve new services or improvements. It also provides information and data on current operational services to enable service portfolio management to track the accuracy of forecasts. Identifying and defining the patterns of business activity is a key activity of demand management. This information is used by service portfolio management to define a service and determine the utilisation and expected return on investment for the service. It is generally the business relationship management process that communicates customer’s requirements through formal requests for new services or changes to existing services. This information is used by service portfolio management to define and evaluate the services. As business relationship management is the focal point for customers, it updates them with the progress and status of the services in the portfolio. Service level management is responsible for achieving the levels of performance defined in the service portfolio management. Capacity and availability management processes ensure that the capacity and availability requirements of chartered services are designed and built in an efficient and cost-effective way. While defining services, the service portfolio management details the significance and importance of a service to the business. Based on this information IT service continuity management identifies the business impact of service outages and disruptions along with risks associated with delivering the service. It then designs and implements the counter-measures and recovery plans to ensure meeting service level objectives stated by service portfolio management. Information security management ensures that the confidentiality, integrity and availability objectives defined by service portfolio management are met. Supplier management process flags off any risk with respect to services provided by the suppliers. This in turn will enable service portfolio management to take appropriate decisions regarding services in the portfolio that may be impacted. Change management ensures that impact and risk assessment are performed and the resources required to introduce new services are evaluated. This supports chartering of services by service portfolio management. Change management further controls and coordinates the design, build and deployment activities of all changes pertaining to a service. Service portfolio is considered as a configuration item and falls within the purview of service asset and configuration management. On the other hand, service asset and configuration management provides information about service models which is of great value to service portfolio management. Service validation and testing is responsible for ensuring that the expected functionality and returns of each service can be achieved. Knowledge management is responsible for availability of relevant information and data to IT managers and architects to make informed decisions about best service options to meet the organisation’s objectives. Continual service improvement measures the performance of various aspects of a service and the levels of customer satisfaction. The inferences from these measurements and analysis are fed back to service portfolio management to take appropriate actions. In the next slide we will look into the financial management for IT services.

3.17 Value to Business Financial Management for IT Services

Financial management for IT services ensures that appropriate level of funding is available to design, develop and deliver services that meet the strategy of the organisation. It identifies the balance between the cost and quality of service and maintains the balance of supply and demand between the service provider and their customers. Firstly, financial management for IT services provides the ability to conduct business in a financially responsible manner and to comply with regulatory and legislative requirements as well as generally accepted accounting principles and practices. Secondly, it enables accurate planning and forecasting of the budget needed to cover the cost of service. This ensures that the required funds are available in a timely manner for implementing and managing the services. Thirdly, it also enables the service provider and business to understand the cost of IT to each business unit. Based on this information charging policies may be decided and implemented. Fourthly, financial management for IT services ensures funding services that are more important and aligned to strategic objectives thus leading to better matching of IT services to business outcomes. Lastly, most organisations have a constraint of limited financial resources. Financial management provides the ability to make sound business decisions regarding the use of and investment in IT. We will proceed further and look at some of the key interfaces of financial management for IT services. ?

3.18 Financial Management for IT Services Interfaces

It is a good practice to use financial management to determine the costs and benefits of various service management processes. A number of these processes also use financial management information or interface with its activities in executing their process activities. We shall now look at some of the key interfaces of financial management for IT services. They are: Strategy management for IT services defines returns on investment expected from new or changed services based on information and tools provided by financial management for IT services. Financial management for IT services is expected to track and report on the achievement of expected returns as well as other financial information. Service portfolio management defines the service structure. This is used as a key input by financial management for IT services in defining cost models, accounting and budgeting systems and charging policies. Service management processes should be able to define services that provide a good balance between price, functionality and cost. Business relationship management is the process through which information on how business measures the value of services and what they are willing to pay for the services is obtained. The financial and charging policies are communicated to the business through business relationship management. Ascertaining the cost of service provision is a key activity of financial management for IT services. Capacity and availability management provide inputs on technology requirements and options and service performance. This is used to compute the overall cost of service and to produce various reports required by service management processes. Change management is assisted by financial management for IT services in determining the financial requirements as well as financial impacts relating to implementing the change. Service assets and configuration items have financial value and are subject to certain financial policies and procedures. Service asset and configuration management documents the financial data which is used for analysis and reporting. Continual service improvement is dependent on financial management for IT services in ascertaining the costs and benefits in financial terms for the proposed improvement. This information is used for investment and approval decisions. We will look into the concept of demand management in the next slide.

3.19 Value to Business Demand Management

Demand management tries to understand, anticipate and influence customer’s demand for services and works with capacity management to ensure that the service provider has adequate capacity to meet this demand. Demand management works at every stage of the lifecycle to ensure that services are designed, tested and delivered to support the achievement of business outcomes at the appropriate levels of activity. This process provides two important benefits to business. First, it helps in achieving a balance between the cost of a service and the value of the business outcomes it supports. This is achieved by collaborating with capacity management and ensuring that adequate resources are available at the appropriate levels of capacity to meet the demand for services. Second, two key activities within demand management are identifying the patterns of business activity and user profiles. Information from these two activities enables evaluation of actual investment required to achieve business outcomes at varying levels of activity. We will discuss the different interfaces of demand management in the next slide.

3.20 Demand Management Interfaces

Demand management process activities span across lifecycle stages and this process has a lot of significance in the overall IT service management. This process interfaces with many other processes which we shall discuss in brief now. The demand management interfaces are: Strategy management for IT services identifies the key business outcomes and business activities that will be used by demand management to establish patterns of business activity and user profiles. Service portfolio management uses some critical information provided by demand management. The patterns of business activity and user profile information enable it to evaluate service models, establish and forecast utilisation requirements and to identify different types of users. The service packages are also developed based on this information. Financial management for IT services works with demand management to forecast the cost of service provision and to manage and regulate demand for services through differential charging. Business relationship management liaisons with customers to understand business activities and identify different types of users. Thus, it acts as an extended hand of demand management in gathering this information. Service level management is assisted by demand management and capacity management with information on utilisation and performance of services. Demand management will work with service level management to define policies for how to deal with variances in supply and demand. Demand management and capacity management are two highly interrelated processes. Together they contribute to the design, development, operation and improvement of services. Information on patterns of business is used by availability management in determining critical business periods and periods of high usage of services. This information is also used for performing service outage analysis and availability reporting. IT service continuity management will use demand management information to perform business impact analysis and sizing recovery options. Demand management along with capacity management assist change management in impact assessment of changes and also evaluating the true cost of proposed changes to services. Service asset and configuration management will identify the relationship between the demand placed on services and the demand placed on systems and devices. This is an essential link in ensuring that operational teams are able to execute what was anticipated during strategy and design. Service validation and testing provides an assurance that services are able to meet the requirements at varying patterns of business activities and also where required, the measures taken to prevent over-utilisation are effective. Event management helps in providing the data on actual patterns of business activity and service utilisation. This helps in validating and comparing the actuals with anticipated patterns. Let us move on to the concept of business relationship management in the next slide.

3.21 Value to Business Business Relationship Management

Business relationship management tries to establish a cordial relationship between the service provider and the customer based on understanding that the customer and their business needs. It ensures that customer’s expectations do not exceed what they are willing to pay for, and that the service provider is able to meet the customer’s expectations before agreeing to deliver the service. As a process within service management, business relationship management is of immense value to business. Business relationship management creates a forum for on-going, structured communication with its customers. Through this it enables IT service management to align and integrate IT services with business services and processes. This will further support achievement of business outcomes. By adopting a structured communication this process helps the service provider in understanding the customer’s business better. On the other side, it also helps the customer to understand the service provider’s capabilities and services. Thus business relationship management helps to set realistic customer expectations and puts a human face on the service provider. Business relationship management enables customer and service provider groups to reach consensus in case of disagreements. As this process is a key link in transforming business requirements into operational services it builds higher levels of trust between the service provider and customers. Complete focus on customer satisfaction enables the service provider and customers alike to gauge how effectively the business objectives are being met. We will discuss the different interfaces of business relationship management in the next slide.

3.22 Business Relationship Management Interfaces

As a link between service provider and customer, business relationship management interfaces with a number of service management processes. The business relationship management interfaces are: Strategy management for IT services works closely with business relationship management to identify opportunities for new services or enhancements to existing services as well as new market spaces. Business relationship management shares service portfolio information, especially about operational services, with the customers. It also works with service portfolio management to gather detailed requirements and information about the customer’s environment. This is essential for developing service models and for assessing proposed services. Business relationship management interfaces and interacts with financial management for IT services in a number of ways. It provides information on the customer’s financial objectives, status and expected pricing levels. Similarly, it conveys funding requirements or charging policies determined by financial management to customers. This process helps demand management to identify and validate patterns of business activity and user profiles. Where demand for services needs to be managed, to ensure that supply meets demand, it is agreed with customers through business relationship management. Business relationship management and service level management work together at two different levels in meeting customer’s requirements and expectations. Business relationship management provides useful information about customer’s priorities and service performance requirements. It also helps with feedback information gathered from customer satisfaction surveys. Service catalogue management is responsible for creating and maintaining an up-to-date and accurate catalogue. This catalogue is one information source highly used by business relationship management in showcasing the service provider’s capabilities and competencies to the customers. Also, as services move from pipeline to catalogue, business relationship management is responsible for keeping customers updated about the progress of services under development. Through different stages of the service lifecycle, the capacity and availability management processes depend on business relationship management to seek information regarding business outcomes and service requirements from customers. Business relationship management provides IT service continuity management with clear understanding of business priorities, vital business processes and outcomes. It also ensures that the identified risks, counter-measures, recovery plans and tests are appropriate with actual business needs and are capable of providing the required level of assurance to the customers. Business relationship management coordinates with change management to ensure proper prioritisation and assessment of changes. It updates the progress of changes to customers and takes care of customer involvement in the change process. Service validation and testing requires customer involvement to test the functionality and performance of new or changed services. Business relationship management coordinates the availability of appropriate resources as per test schedules. Business relationship management plays a crucial role in initiating and implementing service improvements through continual service improvement. It enables logging, validating, prioritising, and funding of improvement opportunities and also keeps the customers updated on the status of these initiatives. We will look into the concept of design coordination in the next slide.

3.23 Value to Business Design Coordination

Designing a service taking into consideration the five aspects of service design is such a complex task that it requires special focus and attention. The service management team or the project team will have to interact, cooperate and coordinate with a number of teams to ensure proper completion and compilation of the service design package. Design coordination process provides a single point of coordination and control for all activities and processes within the design stage of the service lifecycle. A number of benefits accrue to the business when design coordination process is implemented and adhered to by the service providers and IT organisations. This process enables production of a set of consistent quality solution designs and service design packages that will provide the desired business outcomes. Let us have a quick look at the key benefits derived by adopting design coordination process. It enables achieving the intended business value of services through design at acceptable risk and cost levels This process helps in minimising rework and unplanned labour costs associated with reworking design issues during later service lifecycle stages. It supports the achievement of higher customer and user satisfaction and improved confidence in IT and in the services received. The process ensures that all services conform to a consistent architecture, allowing integration and data exchange between services and systems. It provides improved focus on service value as well as business and customer outcomes It develops improved efficiency and effectiveness of all service design activities and processes, thereby supporting higher volumes of successful change delivered in a timely and cost-effective manner. It enables achieving greater agility and better quality in the design of service solutions, within projects and major changes. Let us understand the different interfaces of design coordination in the next slide. ?

3.24 Design Coordination Interfaces

Design coordination interacts and interfaces with a number of other service management processes. The primary interfaces will be with the service strategy and service transition processes. The design coordination interfaces are: Service portfolio management process provides key inputs to design coordination in the form of service charter and all associated documentation such as business requirements, requirements for service utility and warranty, service options, risks and priorities. Change management provides details of authorised changes to design coordination to initiate service design activity. Change management also provides authorisation at defined points in the service lifecycle, to ensure that required actions have taken place and that quality criteria have been met. The post-implementation reviews from change management provide valuable feedback on areas of improvement for design coordination. Design coordination provides status information on design milestones that relate to changes. Financial management for IT services provides details of the value proposition for the new or changed service as well as budgets available for design activities. Business relationship management provides design coordination with intelligence and information regarding the business’s required outcomes, customer’s needs and priorities and serves as the interface with the customer at a strategic level. This process also helps in customer verification and sign-off of designs developed. Design coordination hands over the service design package to ‘Transition planning and support’. Both these processes perform similar activities and it is essential that they interact well to produce consistent overall plans and resource schedules for current and future projects and changes. Strategy management for IT services provides design coordination with information about the current and evolving service strategy. This will enable design coordination to ensure that design guidelines and documentation remain aligned with the strategy over time. Planning and design for release and deployment is carried out during the service design stage of the service lifecycle. Design coordination ensures that these are integrated with other service design activities and are incorporated in the overall service design package. Similarly, the planning and designing of various types of tests is carried out during the design stage. Hence design coordination should interact with service validation and testing to ensure that these are integrated with other service design activities and forms part of the overall service design package. Change evaluation determines the performance of a service change. Design coordination should assist the evaluation process by ensuring that the required resources are made available during evaluation of changes. Service level management is responsible for defining and agreeing the service level requirements for new or changed services, which must be done in a consistent manner according to practices developed cooperatively with design coordination. Design coordination should also ensure that the required warranty levels are properly addressed in the service solution design and the service design package. Availability, capacity, IT service continuity and information security management processes are activities involved during service solution design. Design coordination ensures that the inputs provided and design activities executed are in a consistent way according to practices developed in collaboration with these processes. Design coordination interfaces with supplier management to ensure that involvements of suppliers in design activities are properly managed and to develop consistent and reliable practices in this area. Moving on let’s discuss the concept of service catalogue management in the next slide.

3.25 Value to Business Service Catalogue Management

Service catalogue management provides a single source of consistent information on all operational services through a well-designed and maintained service catalogue. It also ensures that the catalogue is available to all those who are authorised to access it. Implementing and adopting service catalogue management process results in a number of benefits to the IT organisation as well as the business. It provides a systematic approach to compiling the service catalogue and presenting it to the customers enabling them to request for and utilise the IT services. The following are the key benefits derived by business from service catalogue management: A service catalogue provides a central source of information on the IT services delivered by the service provider organisation. Hence customers and users can easily access this information and utilise the appropriate services required for achieving their business outcomes. Service catalogue management ensures that all areas of the business can view an accurate, consistent picture of the IT services, their details and their status. This process ensures a common understanding of IT services and enables improved relationships between the customer and service provider. A service catalogue depicts a customer-facing view of the IT services in use, how they are intended to be used, the business processes they enable and the levels and quality of service the customer can expect for each service. This process also helps in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of other service management processes as they can leverage the information contained in or connected to the service catalogue. Next, we will discuss the different interfaces of service catalogue management.

3.26 Service Catalogue Management Interfaces

A service catalogue is used by the business, customers and IT staff. A number of service management processes interact and interface with this process. We shall now discuss the most important ones. The catalogue management interfaces are: The Service portfolio management process determines which services will be chartered and therefore move forward for eventual inclusion in the service catalogue. It also details critical information regarding each service or potential service, including any agreed service packages and service options. All these are key inputs to service catalogue management. The business relationship management process ensures that the relationship between the service and the customers who require it is clearly defined in terms of how the service supports the customers’ needs, business processes and business outcomes. These relationships are incorporated in the service catalogue. The service asset and configuration management process works collaboratively with service catalogue management to ensure that information in the configuration management system and information in the service catalogue are appropriately linked together to provide a consistent, accurate and comprehensive view of the interfaces and dependencies between services, customers, business processes, service assets, and configuration Items. The service level management process negotiates specific levels of service warranty to be delivered which will be reflected in the service catalogue. The demand management process in conjunction with service portfolio management, determines how services will be constituted into service packages. Using this information service catalogue management ensures that these packages are appropriately represented in the service catalogue. We will look into the concept of service level management in the next slide.

3.27 Value to Business Service Level Management

Business and customers have a certain level of requirements and expectations from IT services utilised to meet their business objectives and outcomes. IT organisations and service providers should understand the levels of services anticipated by the customers and should design, develop and deliver the services accordingly. Service level management is the process which ensures alignment of service levels to customer’s requirements. Service level management is an important medium through which the business requirements for IT services and targets for levels of services are established, monitored, reported and appropriate action taken in case of deviations. The key benefits derived by business from service level management are detailed here: Service level management provides a consistent interface to the business for all service-level-related issues. There is a point of contact available from IT service management to communicate with regarding requirements, feedback and improvements expected. This process also provides the business with the agreed service targets and the required management information to ensure that those targets are met. It enables presenting the service level achievements and breaches periodically in a consistent way and also allows discussion of the service level reports, future requirements and issues if any. It also provides feedback on the cause of the breach of service level targets and details of the actions taken to prevent the breach from recurring. This provides an assurance to the business that issues are analysed and appropriate action taken to improve service performance. Service level management provides a reliable communication channel and a trusted relationship with the appropriate customers and business representatives at a tactical level. Relevant reports are shared and review meetings held at agreed intervals to share information, resolve issues and plan for improvements. We will discuss the different interfaces of service level management next.

3.28 Service Level Management Interfaces

Service level management plays a significant role within the overall IT service management. A number of processes interact and interface with this process. We shall be discussing some of the important ones here. The service level management interfaces are: Business relationship management ensures that the service provider has a full understanding of the needs and priorities of the business. It coordinates the identification and documentation of service level requirements and ensures representation in service review meetings. Service catalogue management provides accurate information about services and their interfaces and dependencies to support determining the appropriate SLA framework, identifying customers and business units that need to be engaged by service level management and assists in communicating with customers regarding services provided. Some key service level agreements are related to incident management. The process provides critical data to service level management to demonstrate performance against the relevant SLA targets. Supplier management process works collaboratively with service level management to define, negotiate, document and agree terms of service with suppliers and to support the achievement of commitments made by the service provider in service level agreements. Availability, capacity, IT service continuity and information security management processes contribute to service level management by helping to define service level targets that relate to their area of responsibility and to validate that the targets are realistic. Once targets are agreed, the day-to-day operation of each process ensures that achievements match the defined targets. Financial management for IT services process works with service level management to validate the predicted cost of delivering the service levels required by the customer. Design coordination process is responsible for ensuring that the overall service design activities is completed successfully. The service level requirements and targets documented by service level management are critical inputs for designing the new or changed services. The next slide deals with the concept of supplier management. ?

3.29 Value to Business Supplier Management

Suppliers are more formally treated as partners rather than mere providers of goods and services and supplier management process ensures that all contracts and agreements with suppliers support the needs of the business and that suppliers meet their contractual commitments. The key benefits derived from establishing a formal supplier management process are: It provides value for money from suppliers and contracts by ensuring that all targets in underpinning supplier contracts and agreements are aligned to business needs and agreed targets within service level agreements This process ensures the delivery of end-to-end, seamless, quality IT services that are aligned to the business’s expectations It also ensures alignment with all corporate requirements relating to procurement and the requirements of all other IT and service management processes. We will discuss the different interfaces of supplier management in the next slide. ?

3.30 Supplier Management Interfaces

Success of overall service management is to a large extent dependent on how well the individual processes integrate with other processes. A number of dependencies exist amongst these processes and it is essential to understand them and enable the interfaces for enhancing the efficiency of the processes as well as the overall service management. We shall now look at some of the key interfaces between supplier management process and other processes. The supplier management interfaces are: Supplier management process assists service level management in determining the targets and responsibilities for suppliers that are aligned with business needs and for subsequent inclusion in the service level agreements and contracts. Service level management, on the other hand helps supplier management with the investigation of service level agreement breaches caused by poor supplier performance. Supplier contracts and agreements are controlled documents and fall within the scope of change management. Any changes to these documents should follow change management process and approved by relevant change advisory boards. Also, changes to services and service components should assess the involvement of suppliers and included in respective plans. Information security management analyses and defines the information security requirements for every supplier involved in IT service provision. Supplier management should ensure inclusion of these requirements in the contracts and agreement. These requirements include access to services and systems, confidentiality and non-disclosure clauses and conformance to service provider’s information security policy. Financial management for IT services provides adequate funds to finance supplier management requirements and contracts and provides financial advice and guidance on purchase and procurement aspects. It also enables relevant reports on budget allocation, budget vs. actuals and value derived or cost-savings accrued by engaging external suppliers. Service portfolio management process uses supplier management input to ensure that all supporting services and their details and relationships are accurately reflected within the service portfolio. IT service continuity management works closely with supplier management in screening and selecting suppliers required for executing disaster recovery and continuity activities. We will move on to the concept of capacity management in the next slide.

3.31 Value to Business Capacity Management

Considering capacity requirements for services as well as resources during the design stage is the best way of developing and delivering efficient services to customers. Capacity is one of the key warranty components and directly impacts the value derived from the utilisation of the services by the customers. Capacity management ensures that the capacity of IT services and the IT infrastructure meets the current and future agreed capacity and performance requirements of the business in a cost-effective and timely manner. A well designed and executed capacity management process will lead to a number of benefits to business and IT. Let us now discuss some of these benefits. Proper capacity planning and execution significantly improves the performance and availability of IT services for the business needs. It also helps to reduce capacity and performance related incidents and problems in IT services delivered. Capacity management also ensures that required capacity and performance are provided in the most cost-effective manner by analysing and making use of the latest ideas, trends and technologies in IT industry. This process contributes to improving customer satisfaction and user productivity by ensuring that all capacity and performance related service levels are met and capacity related service improvements are implemented where required. Capacity management is a proactive process and supports the efficient and effective design and transition of new or changed services. With close interaction with service portfolio, demand management and service level management, it ensures that the changing requirements are captured in capacity plan and appropriate actions are taken. This process also improves the reliability of capacity-related budgeting through the use of a forward-looking capacity plan based on a sound understanding of business needs and plans. A best practice is to map capacity planning with budget cycles to ensure sufficient funding will be available for IT infrastructure changes required in the next financial period. This process also helps in improving the ability of the business to follow an environmentally responsible strategy by using green technologies and techniques in capacity management. We will discuss different interfaces of capacity management now.

3.32 Capacity Management Interfaces

Capacity management interacts and interfaces with a number of service management process. Let us look at some of the key ones. The key capacity management interfaces are: There is a very close dependency between availability management and capacity management. These two processes work together to determine the resources needed to ensure the required availability of services and components. Service level management helps capacity management in determining capacity targets and assists in the investigation and resolution of service and component capacity-related breaches. Capacity management assists IT service continuity management with the assessment of business impact and risk and determining the capacity needed to support risk reduction measures and recovery options. Capacity management provides assistance to incident and problem management in finding resolutions and subsequent justification and correction of capacity-related incidents and problems. Demand management provides information on user profiles and patterns of business activity. This information helps capacity management in identifying the means to influence the demand and also helps in strategic decision-making. Let us now look into availability management and its value in the next slide.

3.33 Value to Business Availability Management

From a customer’s point of view, availability of services at the agreed levels is of foremost importance. Customers and business execute a number of business processes and activities to achieve the set objectives and outcomes. These processes are tightly integrated with IT services and therefore many a time customer satisfaction is a direct correlation to availability of the services. Availability management defines, analyses, plans; measures and improves all aspects of the availability of IT services, ensuring that all IT infrastructure, processes, systems, tools, and roles are appropriate for the agreed availability service level targets. The value derived by business when IT organisations adopt availability management process may be summarised as follows: Availability management ensures that the availability of sy